By Corbin Hamilton

 Louis Armstrong was born August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana and died on July 6,1981 in Queens, New York, from a heart attack.  Louis was born into a rough childhood in an area so poor it was known as the battlefield.  Louis’s father was a factory worker who left soon after his birth, and his mother often left him with his maternal grandmother  Armstrong left school in the fifth grade to begin working. A Jewish family, the Karnofskys, gave young Armstrong a job collecting junk and delivering coal. They also encouraged him to sing and often invited him into their home for meals.  In 1912, Armstrong, after firing his stepfather's gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration was arrested, and sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys. There, he received musical instruction on the Cornet and fell in love with music. In 1914, the home released him, and he immediately began dreaming of a life making music. Although he continued to do odd jobs around town, Armstrong began earning reputation as a blues player.

 In 1918,Armstrong married Daisy Parker but the marriage was extremely unsuccessful and ended in divorce. Soon afterwards, Armstrong adopted a three-year-old boy named Clarence. The boy's mother had died in childbirth. Clarence, who had become mentally disabled from a head injury was taken care of by Armstrong his entire life.  Meanwhile, Armstrong's reputation as a musician continued to grow: In 1918, he replaced Oliver in Kid Ory's band, then the most popular band in New Orleans. He was soon able to stop working manual labor jobs and began concentrating full-time on his cornet, playing parties, dances, funeral marches, and at local "honky-tonks“. In the summer of 1922, he received a call from King Oliver to come to Chicago and join his Creole Jazz Band on second cornet. Armstrong accepted, and he was soon taking Chicago by storm with both his remarkably fiery playing and the dazzling two-cornet breaks that he shared with Oliver.

 Armstrong soon began dating the female pianist in the band, Lillian Hardin. After they married in 1924, Hardin made it clear that she felt Oliver was holding Armstrong back. She pushed her husband to cut ties with his mentor and join Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, the top African-American dance band in New York City at the time. Armstrong joined Henderson in the fall of 1924, and immediately made his presence felt with a series of solos that introduced the concept of swing music to the band, transforming Henderson's band into what is generally regarded as the first jazz big band.  Henderson forbade Armstrong from singing, fearing that his rough way of vocalizing would be too coarse for the sophisticated audiences at the Roseland Ballroom. Unhappy, Armstrong left Henderson in 1925 to return to Chicago, where he began playing with his wife Lil's band at the Dreamland Café

 While in New York, Armstrong cut dozens of records as a sideman, creating inspirational jazz with other greats such as Sidney Bechet, and backing numerous blues singer  In Chicago, OK eh Records decided to let Armstrong make his first records with a band under his own name known as Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. From 1925 to 1928, Armstrong made more than 60 records with the Hot Five and, later, the Hot Seven. Today, these are generally regarded as the most important and influential recordings in jazz history.  He also began singing on these recordings, popularizing wordless "scat singing" with his hugely popular vocal on 1926's "Heebie Jeebies.“  While performing in 1926, Armstrong switched from the cornet to the trumpet.

Some of Louis Armstrong's most well known pieces are:  What A Wonderful World  Cornet Chop Suey  Potato head blues  West End Blues  I Can't Give You Anything But Love  Star Dust  Body and Soul  Heebey Jeebes  Blueberry Hill  That Lucky Old Sun  La Vie En Rose  A Kiss to Build a Dream On  I Get Ideas.

 Louis Armstrong was married 4 times  Louis Armstrong Extremely disliked Dwight D Eisenhower  Louis Armstrong had many nicknames but his favorite of all of them was sachmo  Louis Armstrong Was a unique artist for his time because his fan base consisted of both blacks and whites  Louis Armstrong was very good friends with Bing Crosby another musical legend  Although Armstrong was married and was known for his way with children, he never had any of his own.

 armstrong    d_armstrong_louis.htm